China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei urged Washington to focus on its own human rights conditions, saying, “We advise the US side to reflect on its own human rights issues and not to position itself as a preacher of human rights,” the state-funded BBC reports.

“[The US should] stop using the issue of human rights reports to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs,” the Chinese politician added.

Hong says China welcomes talks about rights on the basis of equality and mutual respect. However, he added that Beijing resolutely opposes meddling in other countries’ affairs.

The development comes following the annual release of US State Department’s report on human rights, which criticized China for rights abuses.

The American report, considered by many observers as more of a political document against countries not in good terms with the US, accused Beijing of stepping up restrictions on lawyers and journalists.

“We remain deeply concerned about reports that since February, dozens of people including public-interest lawyers, writers, artists, intellectuals and activists have been arbitrarily detained and arrested,” Clinton said.

The Asian country has also been accused by the US of tightening controls on civil liberties and imposing more restraints over the press and internet access.

Earlier on Friday, Lockheed Martin Corp executives said the first phase of the so-called Saudi Naval Expansion Program-II could be worth e20 billion, attributing the estimate to U.S. Navy officials. The company would likely vie for any such orders.

Other likely competitors would be Australia’s Austal Ltd and General Dynamics Corp, which teamed up to build a Littoral Combat Ship for the U.S. Navy, as is Lockheed.

Paul Lemmo, a Lockheed vice president for business development, said the company would pitch a multi-mission version of its fast new coastal combat ship, perhaps fitted with Lockheed’s Aegis weapon system.

In October, the Obama administration notified Congress of a proposed arms sale to Saudi Arabia potentially worth as much as e60 billion over 15 to 20 years. It would be the largest arms deal on record if all purchases are made, including 84 Boeing F-15 fighter jets and upgrades to 70 more F-15s that the Saudis already have.

Last month a Saudi Web site reported that a popular cleric has issued a fatwa urging Muslims to target Israeli interests everywhere, to avenge the attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The site, Rasid, posts news about Saudi Arabia’s Shiite community and on Sunday said that Sheik Awadh al-Garni has issued a religious edict urging Muslims to strike anything that has a link to Israel, calling it a legitimate target for Muslims everywhere.

Al-Garni, whose is popular in the kingdom, is not a member of the official religious establishment.

Fatwas are not legally binding, and it is up to the individual Muslim to follow them.

Susan Lindauer, a journalist and author specializing on American interventions, has never believed the allied forces intervened in Libya out of humanitarian reasons. It is a war for oil which was prepared long ago, Lindauer argues – anyone who cared about the Libyan people would stop immediately.

Clinton’s perpetual propaganda efforts exposed her blatant hypocrisy when a silent peaceful protester was violently removed from one of her recent speeches on the very subject. However, the hypocrisy now seems to go much deeper in her deafening silence over the prospect for protests in Saudi Arabia.

After Human Rights Watch revealed that a nationwide “Day of Rage” protest had been planned in Saudi Arabia for this week, March 11th, Bloomberg reported that the Saudi government claims that demonstrations and marches are “strictly” prohibited by law. A Saudi Interior Ministry official said protests “contradict Islamic values” and “They harm public interest, infringe on the rights of others, spread chaos and lead to bloodshed.”

This prohibition of popular dissent proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Saudi Arabia is indeed the most tyrannical authoritarian regime in the Arab world. Yet, U.S. Administration officials have been strangely silent about supporting the people’s uprising there.

Perhaps they think the protests won’t be large enough to warrant a response. Well, that certainly did stop their best propaganda push to stoke the puny protests in Iran, so the size or ferocity of unrest shouldn’t matter to their exploits of supposedly backing human freedom. And one would think that given what has happened to oil prices due to the unrest in Libya and Egypt, even a minor protest in the largest oil-producing dictatorship in the world would draw more public response from the White House.

Or perhaps the Administration believes that the hastily-crafted $35 billion social aid package ordered by King Abdullah will be enough to tamp down escalating tensions in Saudi Arabia. So far, there have only been reports of small Shiite protests in Saudi Arabia, mostly demanding the release of political prisoners held by the Sunni monarchy.

These protests would seem to be very minor in comparison to the sea of people revolting in Cairo. However, the revolutionary whispers must clearly be getting louder as the Saudi stock marketplummeted 11% in just two days of wild trading to its 7-year low on fears of civil unrest. It’s noteworthy that the plunge was reportedly led by large banks and insurers.

If Clinton is to stand by her new-found rhetoric, certainly she’ll call for restraint on the part of the Saudi government should a protest erupt, right? And surely she’ll demand that the kings of Internet censorship in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia, will open communication channels so the people can freely unite, right? And if push comes to shove in Saudi Arabia, she’ll definitely support arming the people’s opposition to the royal family, right? Eh hum . . . don’t count on it.

Clinton was speaking on Saturday at a high-level security conference in Munich, where EU leaders have appeared divided in their response to events in Egypt.

The secretary of state urged European nations to join the US in pressing for broad political and economic reform in the Middle East.

She said half measures were “untenable” as they would only breed further discontent.

Some European leaders such as David Cameron, the British prime minister, have also called for a rapid transition in Egypt.

However, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, fear early elections in Egypt would not be helpful and say the immediate ousting of Hosni Mubarak, the president, could lead to a power vacuum.

‘Strategic necessity’

“The region is being battered by a perfect storm of powerful trends,” Clinton said.

“This is what has driven demonstrators into the streets of Tunis, Cairo, and cities throughout the region.”

Clinton said that Washington was backing Egypt’s drive to craft orderly reforms to allow democratic elections.

“It is important to support the transition process announced by the Egyptian government actually headed by now-vice president Omar Suleiman,” she said.

“The principles are very clear, the operational details are very challenging.”

The secretary of state urged leaders across the Middle East to embrace democratic reforms in response to the growing unrest in the region, despite the risk of short-term instability in countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.

She said change is a “strategic necessity” that will make Arab nations stronger and their people more prosperous and less susceptible to extremist ideologies.

Addressing events in Egypt, Merkel said: “Early elections at the beginning of the democratisation process is probably the wrong approach.”

However, Cameron said a delay would produce an unstable country that the West would not welcome.

“There is no stability in Egypt. We need change, reform and transition to get stability,” he said at the conference.

Obama: Mubarak must listen

On Friday, Barack Obama, the US president, said Mubarak should “listen” to protesters calling for him to resign, but he stopped short of explicitly urging the Egyptian president to leave office immediately.

“He needs to listen to what is voiced by the people and make a judgement about a pathway forward that is orderly, that is meaningful and serious,” Obama said in carefully worded comments on Egypt’s political future.

Obama told reporters that in two conversations with Mubarak since mass protests against the Egyptian leader’s 30-year rule began 11 days ago he stressed the need for an orderly transition to democracy in the country, long a cornerstone of US Middle East strategy.

“Having made that psychological break, that decision that he will not be running again, I think the most important thing for him to ask himself … is how do we make that transition effective and lasting and legitimate,” Obama said.

“The key question he should be asking himself is: ‘how do I leave a legacy behind in which Egypt is able to get through this transformative period?’ And my hope is … that he will end up making the right decision.”

Beijing justified its actions by accusing the Americans of developing an “offensive” laser weapon system that would have the capability of destroying missiles before they left enemy territory.

The disclosures are contained in the latest documents obtained by the Wikileaks website, which have been released to The Telegraph. They detail the private fears of both superpowers as they sought mastery of the new military frontier.